The Seeker Keeps Seeking

 

For me, I’m in a curious place in my Spiritual Journey:

 

 

 

Relieved to be out of the Evangelical worldview.  It’s a huge change.  Recently I looked at some of my old journals and songwriting: it’s ALL Evangelical.  So now I feel like someone bit by a dog.  Scared to consider other metaphysical pitches.  I think this is a healthy fear.  On the other hand, I have in my phone some lectures from Bertrand Russell on “Why I’m Not A Christian” and one file says that religion is based on fear.  There’s all the apocalypticism that says the world will soon end and Jesus will return.  Along with listening to “wise” American preachers like Rick Warren, Timothy Keller, Charles Swindoll, John Piper, etc for guidance into everyday life.  Now I see it all as a crock of doggy doo-doo.

 

 

 

Wary of New Age.   From what you said, it sounds a lot like the “New Age” ideology of people I knew.  My Mom has been deep into it for decades.  Sorry to say, but it seems to be as superstitious as Evangelicals, e.g., hearing the voice of God, the “calling”, predicting the future, etc.  So far I’m planning to steer clear of Deepak Chopra, Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Eckhart Tolle, and all the other feel-good prophets.  To me, they pitch the same “we know all & we’ll offer it to you at the high price of a lecture or book”, similar to the American Evangelicals.

 

 

 

Attracted to the rebellion, cheekiness and “hard” science of the New Atheists.   Also a writer I admire, Chris Hedges, basically states that the New Atheists like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, etc are basically a mirror image of the American Fundamentalists who badger and criticize all religions and enforce a kind of Fascist worldview.  On the other hand, in documentaries or books I’ve seen, I think the New Atheists are doing us all a favour in warning us against the ridiculousness that Christians and other religionists  bring to the public square.  They’re basically saying that the Christian God cannot exist, and I agree.  However, to replace religion, all they offer is science.  I am also wary of the scientists telling us the meaning of life.  They, along with other capitalists who fund them, are responsible for the new yet unnecessary technology that is polluting the planet and turning humans into machines. Scientific triumphalism appears to me just as cocky as Evangelicalism.

 

 

 

Truth, truth, where art thou?  In fact, who really knows the truth?  For me, when I go out into a forest, there is a secret wisdom that goes far beyond anything humans can come up with.  This is the place of truth.  Human society, as inevitable as it may seem, is at odds with Mother Nature, and the result is our alienation from her, and from reality.  Just sitting there, with no thoughts of spirits, angels, demons, reincarnations around her, Mother Nature just IS.  And in a curious way, she almost mocks us.  For our arrogance. For our greed.  For our constant dissatisfaction.  Here is where I believe I can find truth.

 

 

 

And yet, human society is here, and I have to be a part of it, like it or not.  And because I’m forced to be a part of it, I will make the best of it, and point myself and others to the simple truths of Mother Nature and reality, without all the hocus-pocus and false promises of religion and commercialized spirituality.

 

 

 

The Force?  In fact, I began remembering the Star Wars movies I saw as a kid.  They talked about the “Force”.  I remember in seminary, we studied “Animism” as if all the natives who believed in it were stupid and childlike, and their simplistic spirituality was a form of natural rebellion at the “obviousness” of monotheism.  From my research, I found that “The Force” has been a belief around the world for many cultures, for many millennia.  But now, I am getting into another weird New Agish belief here?

 

 

 

First Nations and Spirituality  It seems to me that indigenous peoples, who have been living closest to nature and have not fully “bought into” the Western-style life of technology, industry, resource extraction, urbanization, compulsory K-12+university education, etc, have something that the rest of us don’t have.  Of course, they’ve suffered horrendously for not buying into the system.  But they’re still here, and their lives are a sign, a testament, to an alternative that Westerners and all the other Western-Wannabes have neglected in our blinded rush to a Utopian Progress.

 

 

 

Once Bitten, Twice Shy  I’m still extremely skeptical of all “Metanarratives”.  Jean-Francois Lyotard, a late French philosopher, defined the “postmodern” condition as an incredulity toward all “Metanarratives”, which mean, a grand story that explains all of human existence, whether it be Christianity, Islam, Atheism, New Age, Marxism, etc. (http://cambridgeforecast.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/metanarratives-lyotard/).  In other words, in my view, there is not one mega-worldview that can cover all of human existence.

 

 

 

That’s why, after buying into the Christian worldview for so long, I relish my newfound freedom and have no desire to jump down another rabbit hole.  Having said that, I’ve embarking on this present spiritual journey for the last couple years, which led me to the point of breaking with Evangelicalism.  I have been researching other religions and forms of spirituality (eg First Nations sweat lodges & other ceremonies, Daoism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sunni Islam, Hinduism, Catholicism, etc) and find it quite enjoyable.  But I always have to insist to people that I am a spiritual pilgrim and don’t wish to become a recruit.  Not always easy, seeing how in Canada everyone seems keen on converting visitors.

 

 

 

Sacred Time vs Sacred Space In Vine Deloria Jr’s book, God Is Red, he explains how people try to invent universal spiritual worldviews into which they force the entire human race.  Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, don’t look to prophets, holy people or holy books in history so much as they look upon a sacred place of worship.  Their spirituality is based on the experience in a geographic area, a holy mountain, river, forest, etc.  That is, they look more to space rather than time.  Christians look at the Old Testament / New Testament period as their Golden Age of spiritual wisdom.  They say that Jesus’ death & so-called resurrection are the crossroads of human history.  It is history-based.  First Nations live more in the NOW and WHERE.  Seems to make more sense.

 

 

 

Loneliness and Joy Strangely enough, at times I feel extremely lonely, as if cast adrift on a huge ocean, all alone in my thoughts and quiries.  In other instances, I am so relieved and happy to be a free agent, able to freely think, without referring to some “holy book” or “holy person” for guidance.  I don’t even see myself as the ultimate.  After all, as Socrates said, I know how much I don’t know.  All my learning leads me back to the same place: Ground Zero.  And, in a sense, it is a wonderful, joyous place.  It’s like some people have said: it’s not the destination that counts, but the journey.  Like U2’s old ditty “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”.

 

 

 

I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

 

 

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with youBut I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

 

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
Burning like a fire
This burning inside her

I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes I’m still running

You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Oh my shame
You know I believe it

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…
Lyrics from <a href=”http://www.elyrics.net“>eLyrics.net</a>

 

This is the heart cry of a seeker.  One who expects to find, and yet expects to keep seeking.  Maybe like the Rolling Stones’ “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”.  Full, and yet still empty.  Content, and yet still restless.  I want to find the answer, but still don’t want someone to tell me this is THE answer, that this is all there is.  Rebellion against Metanarratives connected with a submission to the beauty and ruggedness of truth.  And I believe there is truth.  It just looks little like the fast food you and I have been dished from infancy.  Truth is solid, steadfast, relieving, and yet convicting, uncomfortable and challenging.  Beautiful, “sexy” and charming and yet tough, sometimes ugly and hard to swallow.  But it’s all there, all necessary, and all part of Mother Nature’s offering to us.  We just have to wipe the sleep out of our eyes and be willing to see.

 

 

 

Weird, I know.  But it’s lovely all the same.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

A Seeker

 

Pondering Life

Here I am at the local library.  My baby is sleeping in his stroller.  A Cantonese lady beside me is chattering on her cell phone as she watches Chinese historical drama on the computer.  My old friend comes chatting with me before he heads off to his father’s funeral.  I’m dying of thirst.  Ah, that chocolate-vanilla mix of almond juice in my thermos is so refreshing.

I’ve been missing blogging.  I was trying to think about writing well-prepared posts before I published them, instead of incoherent rants and chaotic meanderings that leave the reader in the land of Confucius.  However, life’s been busy, and I might as well GOYA (get off your ass) and express myself.

Life is sometimes cool.

Sometimes like Heaven.

Sometimes like Guantamano Bay.

If you open yourself up,

life can take you places you’d never imagined.

I have a good family life now, after experiencing the trauma of divorce in the late 2000s.  New family, new life.  It took me six years to reach this point, but by the grace of Beyond, I did it.  Thank You, Beyond.

Oh yeah, if you’re wondering what “Beyond” is, I’ll let you in on my little secret:

“Beyond” is like the “Higher Power” of Alcoholics Anonymous.  It is a belief that there is something greater than humanity.

I decided in the last couple months to unshackle my belief system.  After toying with horoscopes, the concept of reincarnation and the paranormal as a kid, I converted to Evangelical Christianity as a 13 year old, Grade 8 high school student.  I faithfully attended church for 30+ years, giving 10% tithes of my salary, and following what the pastors told me.  I eventually ended up as a missionary in “Communist” China for a few years.  The messy family break-up and the abduction of my child are what forced me me to return to Canada.

In many ways, that whole experience helped shake me out of my Evangelical worldview, slowly but surely, painful moment by painful moment.  Of course, I had many joys and exhilarating experiences amidst the hard times too.  But I have become disillusioned by Western society on the whole, and by my Evangelical sub-group in particular.  Having experienced so many cultures and worldviews, I became suspicious of the Western monopoly on “reality-as-we-know-it”.

I’m always hanging around Chinese people, here in the Greater Vancouver area of the Canadian province of BC.  It’s funny, but modern Chinese culture is like a mirror image of Western culture.  At their worst, both “cultures” (although I realise that they are both amalgamations of thousands of cultures) are arrogant and chauvinistic, xenophobic and bullying, historically revisionist and culturally/economically/politically dominant.  At their best, they offer creativity, innovation, openmindedness, inquiry, curiosity, etc.  One of the most obvious features is that they are all so sure of themselves.

Self-assurance is the mark of a dominant culture that has quashed smaller cultures and worldviews.  The “Han” Chinese have it in spades.  But I cannot blame them, because they’re just throwing the arrogance we Westerners have back in our faces.

Back to faith.  Basically, reality is reality.  Research will eventually tell us the truth, as long as we have the time, resources and appropriate “leads”.  Unfortunately for me, I believed in Christianity without doing much research.  I met a heart-felt need as I was struggling with my parents’ separation and our woe-beladen broken family.

In a way, I don’t regret it.  I learned a lot.  It actually gave me some tools with which to critically analyse Western culture.  Evangelicals call it “the world”.  It was a good thing to be taught to be suspicious of “the world”.  Little did I know, but these same Evangelicals and their faith ancestors were the very ones who built “the world” as we know it today.  They built the Matrix.  At their core, they don’t worship the “Beyond”.  They worship the material, money and what it can buy.  They, along with the rest of us Westerners, are stuck in the dominant economic view of life and the world.  The Golden Calf is the true idol that occupies the minds of Christians and non-Christians alike in the West.  And don’t laugh, non-Westerners: you too have bought into this mythology.  Money is your god also.

Mammon-worship has become global in recent years.  The irony is that so many cultures are asserting their national and religious identity, but they are Westernising at an alarming pace.  Because Westernisation = globalisation.  The West colonised the planet, and although it seems that Westerners are decreasingly in the “driver’s seat”, the world culture that is evolving is Western culture.

Why do so many people worldwide want to become Christians?  The answer: economics.  If the West is the best, they damn well want a piece of the action, a taste of the same success.

No matter that it destroys the environment that sustains humanity and all the other creatures.  No matter that it actually destroys our very souls.  Money-worship knows no bounds, except when Mother Earth starts fighting back, as she has been in recent years.

Where is God in all of this?  I don’t know.  If He is all-powerful, plus 100% good, where is He?  I just watched The Dark Knight Rises yesterday on DVD.  Batman himself couldn’t bare to see his city destroyed.  He knew he had the power to do something, and he did it.  Is God any worse than Batman?  Again, I don’t know.

I don’t know if there is a God.  Or gods.  Or a “Force” like in Star Wars.  If there is a God, then I’d say He’s pretty remote from His creation.  Maybe the Deists are right: like a clockmaker, God wound up the planet and let it go.

Even if there is no God, there still is life that pulsates in every living creature.  The earth is alive.  There is something “Beyond” human beings.  We are not “it”.  We pretend to rule the planet, but we’re doing a pretty lousy job of it.  To worship ourselves is to worship assholes.  I’m sorry, there’s no way around this statement.  We create gods in our own image, but in the end, our economics, politics and social structure all reflect a deep self-worship.

I don’t have all the answers.  As I learn more, and live more, and experience more, I have more and more questions.  No matter.  That’s what life is all about:

THE JOURNEY . . . .

In the beginning was Communication

It spoke.  Eventually, we listened.

We rallied, we ranted, we raged and repented.

We bounced, we baited, we travelled.

We walked the path

The path of eternity

That brings us back,

Inevitably,

To where we started,

Though with new eyes,

And hopefully, new hearts  . . .

Love y’all,

Brandr

Feel free to drop me a note at:

thorsblade888 AT gmail.com